by Redrae Gunn
“No.” Carmen glared at him.
Rock looked at the way that Carmen’s eyes were starting to tear up when she looked at Kira. The two of them had gone to clubs to play. They had seen each other playing before. They’d danced nude under the full moon. Why was this so hard for Carmen to take? The realization hit him hard and fast.
“Have you ever seen Kira punished?” Rock asked quietly so Kira couldn’t hear.
Carmen shook her head and whispered. “Kira doesn’t do bratty. Ever. But she wasn’t bratty so, I mean, look I just play to get off and for fun. She’s always needed more. You’re the Master.”
Rock was silent as he watched Carmen turn away from where Kira was sitting. She obviously couldn’t stand to look at her friend being punished any longer. Rock checked himself mentally. He was mildly amused, still in control, calm, and knew the punishment needed to be fulfilled to keep her from repeating the behavior in the future and to keep her healthy. Judging from the way Kira had just rubbed a cramp out of her leg, she was probably regretting not eating the food from last night.
Carmen finished eating and went downstairs. Rock had said that he would send Kira for her when the punishment was over.
Rock cleared all the plates and put them in the sink. He went to the island and held his three fingers to the floor. Instantly Kira was on her feet and at his side. He turned and Kira followed behind him as he went into the living room.
Kira got a cramp in her foot and tried to stretch it out as she walked. She hated herself for not eating the food that Master Rock had so nicely made for her. She was regretting it. More than just the cramp. More than the punishment. She regretted most the look of disappointment on his face.
“I never want you to drop after a scene,” Rock said firmly as he stopped in front of the cage and pointed to the floor. He did give her a grunt acknowledging that she had done well by kneeling so quickly. “I want you to trust me to care for you after surrendering to me. I need you to trust me with not only your pleasure and your pain. I need you to trust me with your life.”
He paused and waited for the impact and seriousness of his words to sink in. “You have permission to speak.”
“Please forgive me,” Kira pleaded. “I would feel terrible if I had made something for you and you just threw it away. I didn’t respect you for looking out for my needs and I didn’t respect the time you had taken to prepare something for me. I am so sorry.”
Rock gave his signal for her to stand and then ordered her to strip. She looked relieved to get out of the scratchy clothes he had chosen for her. Then he pointed to the floor and she kneeled again.
“Little flower,” Rock said as he gripped her chin and forced her to look at him. “I need to be able to trust you with my heart.”
“Master, you can trust me,” Kira said with tears in her eyes.
“You are forgiven,” Rock said. He walked to the recliner with the silk sheet and warm blanket placing both on his lap and held his arms out. When Kira nearly ran to him, Rock cradled his little flower to his chest. When she reached for his goatee and stroked it under her fingers he sighed. Content. Punishment had been fulfilled and fun for him. Terrible for her. Fun for him since afterward she had come climbing back into his lap, seeking his comfort instead of the cage.
Rock’s mind turned to the cage and how much Kira sought it for protection. Today though, she hadn’t hesitated on coming to him for protection. For strength. For security. Perhaps he could get her to see the cage as only a sexual prop and him as her everything else.
* * * *
“Breathe, baby,” Rock said softly.
Kira jumped and looked at Rock. He leaned against the doorway of the bathroom. Just his gaze on her and his nod of approval made her nerves go away. She closed her eyes and exhaled. Give him all your worries. He has big shoulders. He can handle them. She inhaled and exhaled again. She looked at Rock and managed to smile and nod.
“Where’d all that tension go?” Rock said as he held her gaze.
“On your big shoulders,” Kira admitted and warmed further when Rock laughed.
“Where are you?” Rock asked. He was pleased that she was using him to help calm.
Kira glanced down.
“The fruity type of where are you?” Rock revised his question.
“A very ripe peach.” Kira sighed and then laughed when his eyebrows raised.
“Why?” Rock asked loving the way that she sighed. He expected her honest answer and knew that though she didn’t feel like sharing she would. Because he had said to do so.
“I really, really don’t want to do this,” Kira started. “I’m nervous, scared, but I’m kind of okay because you are here and sharing it with me. I’m worried that Carmen will fall in love with Sam. She falls in love so easy. I’m scared of rumors. I’m terrified of losing my control.”
“Losing your control?” Rock asked as he studied her face intently. Losing control was the biggest worry on her list.
“Getting distracted is a better word for it.” Kira was deep in thought as she spilled her guts. “I’ve used Carmen a hundred times for demonstrations. Because I will never be a lone demonstration tool.” She shuddered at the thought of being trapped and tortured in one of the devices she had created to be an object that symbolized trust in a beautiful or playful relationship.
“I get distracted sometimes because it’s not my nature, I’m role playing.” Kira tried to get her worries in a straight order. “I don’t want Carmen to get hurt by me. I don’t like hurting her in the first place. But she does like it. I just…I’ve accidentally gone too far before because let’s be honest, I’m never in the Dom mindset.”
“What happened?” Rock asked. Getting her to talk about it would help.
“I was doing a demonstration in Tampa.” Kira remembered the blood drip to the floor. She took a breath and continued. “I was showing that a single tail is very effectively used on a sub in a hanging cage. You know those ones that look like bird cages?”
Rock nodded his head.
“Well from out of the corner of my eye this Dom approaches me,” Kira said, remembering it perfectly. “He crossed the ring of fire. That’s what I call the strike zone. I’d already thrown the whip and I flinched because he was in my safety zone, my ring of fire. I jumped, tried to pull the throw, in a complete rookie move, and cut her. Bad. Across her right rib, just under her breast. She still has the scar.”
Rock stayed silent and Kira closed her eyes and focused on her breathing.
“She calls it her little-love-tap. Her LLT. I marked her. With her darker skin the scar is pretty apparent,” Kira said. “With the tiny outfits she loves to wear, the scar shows. Subs help subs, not scar them for life. She says that I am forgiven but I can’t get past it and every time that I see her LLT I feel terrible.”
“Why do you feel terrible?” Rock asked. That was the heart of the problem.
“Because she continues to trust me to use her for demonstrations and I don’t deserve her trust to continue to use her,” Kira said, exhaling sharply. She closed her eyes. “But I keep doing it. I keep using her.”
“Why do you keep doing it?” Rock asked softly. This was the dawning moment.
“What other choice do I have?” Kira asked squeezing her eyes closed further.
“That’s not why you keep using her Kira,” Rock said firmly. His voice grew louder. “Why do you continue to use the one person that you have scarred?”
“Because she still trusts me!” Kira said sharply and opened her eyes as she looked up. Kira blinked at the white textured ceiling. Why would anyone trust someone that had hurt them?
Kira worked through the epiphany. Accidents happen. She had been forgiven. It had been an accident. Would she want Rock to accept her forgiveness if he had accidentally hurt her? Of course she would. She would feel worse if he felt bad about hurting her. What if Rock had hurt her and then refused to play again? That would be the worse punishment ever.
“She won’t be
fully healed from my wound until I fully accept her forgiveness,” Kira whispered to herself. “It’ll only take a few words and she will know.”
When Kira’s eyes pulled away from the ceiling and looked at Rock, he was smiling.
“Did you have a Dom moment, little flower?” Rock was smiling.
“Definitely not,” Kira said defensively. “I had a sub helping sub moment.”
“Whatever you’d like to call it doesn’t matter,” Rock said. “Where are we at now? In the fruit salad.”
“Ripening peach,” Kira said quickly. “I still don’t like this.”
“But it’s what you need right?” Rock said.
“Please don’t go into the speech about sometimes what I need and what I want are two different things,” Kira replied.
“Well what you want and what you need are two different things but they are also usually connected. Intricately,” Rock said, his voice growing dark and deep. Deeper than normal.
“Master, please?” Kira asked. Her plea for his support sounded in her voice.
Rock stilled and leveled his gaze at her. He pushed away from the door frame and started toward her. The closer he came the calmer she became. “You have my support at all times. While Sam is here, I am still your Master. Understood?”
“Thank you.” Kira breathed as she looked at her leather pants. She was going with a corset as well, black to match her pants, and her leather stilettos that she used to work. She needed to stay in work mode and hope that Carmen was right. This was just another client. Not Sherriff Sam Morgan.
* * * *
Rock looked out the sliding glass window as Sam got out of his car. He was in his own vehicle and in plain clothes at Carmen’s suggestion that they go out for New Year’s Eve. Carmen had gotten Sam to come out as her date because she didn’t want to be a third wheel.
“Carmen, go answer the door and tell him that Kira’s Master would like to speak to him in the kitchen. Seat him at the dining room table and then please come into the living room with Kira,” Rock said firmly. When Carmen ran into the kitchen, Rock turned his attention to his wilting little flower.
“You are not to react to another man.” Rock fisted Kira’s hair in his hand. He forced her to kneel and look up at him. “Do you understand?”
“Master?”
“You are reacting to another man. If we were in a club and you were my collared slave I would be well within my right to punish you. Severely.” Rock let her process the punishment he had given her earlier in the week and waited. She still hadn’t grasped it yet so he finished. “I would also ignore your safe word.”
“You haven’t collared me,” Kira said and then she touched the necklace she was wearing. It was the one that Rock had given her. “Master, my reactions are hard to control.”
“That is a good answer,” Rock said sternly. “Not the one I wanted but it will suffice. For now.”
“Help, Rock,” Kira whispered. “Take my worries on you. Please?”
Rock motioned for Kira to stand. He didn’t kneel but he lowered his torso so that they were eye level. “Place your hands on my shoulders.” She did. “Now breathe. I will be with you, next to you, so close to you that you will feel my presence, my power, and you will obey my will.”
Kira nodded.
“Pull from me,” Rock said. “All my strength, all of my will, all of me. Pull it to you and submit to taking it. I will be here for you. You will do this for Sam, for Carmen, for yourself, but most of all you will do this because I said you must do this.”
Kira stood straighter. She thrust back her shoulders. She would do this. It was more than time.
Rock watched as Kira’s entire demeanor changed. She still was submitting to him. But as she glanced at the kitchen, where Sam and Carmen were talking, her entire mood changed.
Kira walked into the kitchen and saw Carmen flirting with Sam. “You need to go there,” Kira said to Carmen as she pointed to the end chair of the dining room table. “You need to go there.” Kira pointed Sam to the chair next to where Rock had sat down.
Sam glanced at Rock and then took his place at the table.
“Sheriff Morgan.” Kira exhaled and inhaled slowly, meeting Sam’s gaze. “I am going to give you something that you have always wanted.”
Sam’s eyebrows raised. “And what is that?”
“I am going to show you what I have been hiding on this property.”
* * * *
Rock made Sam hang back with him near the door of the Quonset. They could both still watch the lights kick on and off and Kira led Carmen through the area to the power box where she could illuminate everything. Rock could see Sam struggling to get a better view of the strange shapes in the dark.
“So what are you expecting?” Rock asked as the lights flickered on and off.
“Drugs,” Sam said immediately. “I mean really this far north she isn’t harboring sex slaves.”
Rock chocked as he laughed. “Perhaps she is my sex slave.”
“That would be illegal,” Sam said facing Rock.
“But if it was consensual then there would be nothing wrong with it,” Rock replied. He looked at Sam. Sam looked to be a natural Dom but he didn’t know what he had. He surely didn’t know how to use what he had other than to intimidate people in interrogation and during a traffic stop.
“If it was consensual,” Sam replied.
“It is,” Rock said nonchalantly. “In a few moments your eyes are going to be overwhelmed by the sight of the things that Kira makes. She and Carmen are going to demonstrate what some of the equipment is for and what consensual means. Respect her for this.”
Sam looked at Rock and nodded his head.
“Feel free to ask questions,” Rock said. “Kira likes to teach this stuff.”
Sam nodded his head again but just then the lights came on and he couldn’t stop himself. “Jesus H. Christ!” Sam’s voice boomed through the area.
Rock gave Sam a warning look but Carmen and Kira had started to giggle and were coming back to the door.
“It’s not drugs,” Kira said, smirking and shaking her head.
“It’s a damned torture chamber!” Sam was still shouting as if that would scare any of the evil looking devices.
Kira watched Sam turn to her. He looked at her like she had sprouted another head. “So do you really want to know what some of the equipment is for or do you once again just want to form your own opinion?”
“Come on, Sam,” Carmen said, grabbing his hand and pulling him down one of the paths. “This stuff can be sooooo much fun.”
“I always knew that you were a freak,” Sam said to Carmen.
“You have no idea,” Carmen said teasing Sam into a smile.
Kira looked at Rock and raised her eyebrows. Sam’s voice had lost some of its bite when he addressed Carmen.
“Maybe it was better that Carmen was here for this,” Kira admitted.
“Probably,” Rock agreed. Carmen played more for fun where he and Kira had definitely taken it down a more serious path. They weren’t completely twenty-four-seven but he could see that it could go there with only minor adjustments.
Rock realized they were pretty much already living the lifestyle full time. Kira served his breakfast, cleaned, did his laundry and basically fulfilled all of his needs. He hadn’t given her orders to do it. She had just kind of fell into it. He liked the routine. She wasn’t running around naked with a collar but she wore the necklace he had given her and dressed as he liked when he suggested it.
Rock looked at Kira as she focused on her friend. He wondered if she realized how in tune with him that she was. He wondered if she knew that in turn he was tuned into her as well. When he had asked about her needing a Master, he was using the term loosely. He hadn’t really expected that she would fall into a Master/slave relationship so easily.
Rock had never laid a finger on a woman in anger so he knew that he wouldn’t abuse her. He just wondered about the emotional toll that it would t
ake. In the years that he had been actively playing, he had heard horror stories about slaves that needed more control than a certain Master could give them. He wasn’t sure he was ready for anything that deep. Yet Kira seemed pretty in charge of her emotions. Once she realized there was an issue she faced the problem head-on, just like she was doing now.
“Sam do you need saving?” Kira asked, smiling at him and shaking her head at Carmen who was explaining how some of the equipment could be used.
“Some of the things on that table should be illegal,” Sam said pointing to where the spiked jock-strap sat on the table. Then he pointed to a locked metal vault behind a black curtain. “What’s in there that you would need to lock that up as well?”
“Oh yeah,” Kira said like there was nothing out of the ordinary about an enormous bank vault being inside the Quonset. “That is something I should probably show Master Rock and you. In fact I don’t think anyone but my pops has seen this collection.”
Kira walked up to the vault and looked at the large combination lock. She glanced back, making sure that no prying eyes could see the combination. Then she spun in the combination to the lock, grabbed two protruding metal handles, and cranked them counter clockwise. With a loud bang, that had Sam reaching for his gun, the two inch by eight inch steel bars snapped back and the vault opened.
“That’s why we wanted you here when you were off duty,” Rock said to Sam noticing his instinctive response to the sound.
“I should tell everyone in the room that you are free to look but not touch,” Kira said. “Sam, all of these are actually legal for me to own. Well, correction, when I purchased them, they were legal for me to own and they haven’t been ordered to be turned into the government. Obviously they aren’t registered as it is well within my rights not to do so in this county of this state.”
“Understood,” Sam said.
Kira flipped on the lights inside the vault.
“Zombie apocalypse? Kira you are ready for World War Three.” Rock whistled. “These black ammunition boxes?” Rock remembered not to touch as he pointed to the boxes on the floor. “Are they full, too?”